


Waiting Around

by Herself_nyc



Series: Blue-Eyed Boy [4]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Buffy is depressed, F/M, Future Fic, Immortality, Spike is depressed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 10:23:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 15,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1854595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Herself_nyc/pseuds/Herself_nyc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since her resurrection, Buffy has never aged, and has grown increasingly distant from her surviving adult children and their families. After a long lifetime partnered with Xander, Spike has buried him and is at a loose end. He and Buffy have a series of encounters spread out over months, and after averting an apocalypse together, return to London for what might be the beginning of a long-postponed affair. But the past casts long shadows into the present, and the future ....</p><p>Part 4 of the Blue-Eyed Boy series.  Story is unfinished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a 13-chapter continuation from **Some Scenes From The Later Life of Two Heroes**. It is unfinished, and will likely remain so.

A trickle of brown stained the porcelain, from the tap to the drain. When Buffy turned it, the water came out brown at first too, and tepid. Leaning on the edge of the tub, she waited to see if it would get hot. The water heater mounted on the wall must've been well over a century old—she'd seen some primitive plumbing in her travels, but this was pretty serious. It cranked and gurgled but didn't seem to do much. How did Spike put up with this awful flat? Why? The homes he'd shared with Xander had always been comfortable and well-appointed.

Shivering, she turned on the sink tap, to brush her teeth. In the mirror she saw herself, still looking tired despite the fitful sleep she'd had in Spike's narrow saggy bed. _Tired_ was what she got instead of old. Every apocalypse averted seemed to leave her more wrung out than the one before.

A century of this. If anyone had told her at the outset, she really would've run away and not come back.

Footsteps behind her, and Spike appeared in the doorway, nude and yawning, his hair standing on end. "Can I share the bath?"

"If the water ever runs hot."

He laid a dubious hand on the heater box.

"Why do you put up with this? You have money."

"Like I said ..." He shrugged. "Look, we can take a suite at the Dorchester right now if you prefer it, Slayer. Don't expect you to rough it more'n you like."

She dabbled a finger under the tap again. Still just tepid. "I don't understand why you gave up the house."

"Xander died. Felt homeless anyhow, didn't need that property hangin' round my neck to remind me."

"Homeless." Her brush was in her bag in the other room; she ran her fingers through her hair. "Oh Spike."

He pouted. "I work all the time anyway."

"All the time?" She glanced around at him. "Did you ... did you have any other friends, or ... Xander was sick for a long time."

"He urged me to."

"So—"

Spike jerked his head, a gesture of disgust. "What did he take me for? Got a bit of self-control after all this time, don't I? Knew he didn't really _want_ me to. Even old an' sick, Xander always saw himself as my sweet piece of ass. My darlin' boy." He lifted an eyebrow at her. "What about you? You don't live in your voice-mail box. Where's _your_ home these days?"

She had a room in her daughter's house in L.A. She had some of her things in a storage facility there too. She hadn't visited either in a long time, except for when they were burying Patrick. And then she'd been as hinky amongst the artifacts of family and past as a splashed cat. She kept a studio apartment in Manhattan, but she thought of it more as a place to do laundry than as a home.

 _A suite at the Dorchester, right. Or I could say, Thanks for the Apocalypse, and the sweet fucks, and see you next year._ Was this crazy, actually coming back to London with Spike? Just because he said 'better club in with me now'? (Really, how romantic!) She'd never envisioned them getting together. What they'd had was _so_ long ago. And it hadn't been anything to begin with. He'd chased her for a while. And by the time she'd gotten around to thinking maybe she might like to give him a try, he'd made it clear that ship had sailed.

He was with Xander. Xander's whole life.

They'd been allies, when the mission brought them together. Friends, in as much as she was close to Xander and so was Spike. There had been times over the decades whent years went by between face-to-face meetings.

They fought together really well.

He was great in bed.

But she wasn't sure, furtively looking at him now in the sulky fluorescent light of the tiny chilly bathroom, if she wanted to stick around with him.

He wasn't in love with her, that was pretty clear, despite what he'd said, about it being their time. Maybe he remembered when he was, but that was all—and how vivid could those memories even be, with a life-span of Xander in between?

She wasn't in love with him, that was damn sure. She probably wasn't capable of that kind of thing any more. She'd hoped to find someone else in the years after Angel's death, but as the years elapsed she'd begun to feel distanced from everyone else, because her life wasn't like theirs. Her life wasn't quite human.

Impatiently, she reached around him and turned up the tap. "I live in New York. Look, I don't think this is going to get any hotter."

"Leave you to it, then."

When she'd washed and came back out into the bedroom, he wasn't there. In the kitchen she realized he'd left the flat altogether. For a moment she was irritated, but on the whole, relieved.

There was something about waking up here with Spike that was just embarrassing.

Neither of them had thought this out.

It really wasn't a good idea.    


	2. Chapter 2

A shadow fell across her table that at first she took for the waiters'; she didn't glance up from the bright little screen of her phone, just gestured at her empty glass, murmuring "Same again."

But the glass didn't move, nor the shadow either.

When she did look up, he showed her his sneer.

"How did you find me?" This cocktail lounge wasn't in the Dorchester.

"You know that kind of thing's a doddle for the likes of me. Nothin' to pout at me about. Only came to say goodbye."

"Where are you going?"

"You're goin' back to New York. Figured you'd be flyin' out in the morning. No?"

It was late in the evening of the day she'd last awakened in his bed. Or—it was the next day, really, coming on for one a.m. She'd been meaning to go up to her hotel room for the last hour, but she liked the spacy music and the presence of other people around her whom she didn't have to talk to. And she'd long had a sort of rule with herself that pulling bottles out of the mini-bar constituted drinking alone way more than ordering refills from a bartender, even if she wasn't talking to anyone in either place.

"Yes, I'm going."

"So, just wanted to say goodbye. You seemed a bit irritated with me earlier but I recall that's your way." He smiled, half needling, half sincere.

"I'm sorry," she said, meaning it. She was surprised, really, that he'd shown up here.

"So. Yeah. Right." He slid into the banquette opposite her, and gestured towards the bar.

The waiter approached. When he was gone, they sat silently, not quite looking at each other. Buffy still had one eye on her little screen, where something was always demanding her attention.

The waiter returned with beer, and another cocktail for her. She sipped at it, the liquor brassy through the fruit juice.

Spike said, "Got it, you hate my flat. But what's the rush to go runnin' off? Meant to spend some time together, I thought."

"I have a couple of new grand-kids. It would be nice to go see them, y'know?" She hadn't been considering this at all, until the words popped out of her mouth.

Spike fingered his glass. "Oh. Well. Good for you. Congratulations."

"Joey's wife just had twins. Multiples really seem to run in the O'Connor line."

"Just what the world bloody needs, more of Angel."

Buffy laughed. "Joey looks so much like Angel that every time I see him ... it's like I have to _blink_. It's uncanny." With a flick of the finger, she called up a photo in her phone of Patrick's youngest, a man in his prime who, except that his hair had a reddish cast, was the very image of the shanshu-ed Angel she'd married, and slid it across the table for Spike to see. He barely glanced at it.

"There was a time when Xander was wild to get someone knocked up. He wanted to have some kid of his in the world, even if he didn't get to have anything to do with it. This wasn't that long ago, he was a geezer already, but it was before he got sick."

The change of subject startled her. "Did he do it?" Buffy asked.

Spike nodded. "Crazy thing was, while all that was goin' on, I was choked up with envy. After a bit, couldn't bear to be around when he was makin' his plans an' arrangements, didn't want to hear about it."

"Envy." She thought of what he'd said when he met her in Iceland. _I'll marry you if you want to go on with it._ She opened her mouth to ask a question, but Spike was talking again.

"Supposed to hook up with a new slayer next week. But I don't know if I can be a watcher anymore."

"I thought it was so important to you."

Spike shook his head. Not exactly a denial. He hid his down-tilted mouth in his beer.

Buffy leaned in over the table. "Hey. What's your favorite place?"

"Eh?"

"Your favorite place. Where you enjoy to be."

He put down the beer, shook his head. Smiled a little. "Ah ... San Francisco, 'bout forty years ago, was sweet. Before that, Santa Monica round 2015 was damn good. Saint Petersburg in 1915. Paris in 1885."

His chuckle made her throat knot.

She put a hand out, curled it around his. "Let's go to Paris together. What do you say? We just saved the world again, we should have a treat."

"When was the last time you had a watcher?" Spike said.

"Oh! You know ... not since Giles died."

"These girls ... they're all good girls. Strong. But fragile, too. Or maybe it's me who's gone all fragile-like." He made shapes with his hands for a few seconds, then deflated. "I used to tell Harris I'd lie out on his grave 'til sun-up. God, we talked such lorry-loads of lovey-dovey wank."

Only now did Buffy realize that he'd been drinking before he even got here, that he was more than half-way sloshed.

"Spike—"

"Dunno what the feckin' hell I'm waiting for, really." He cocked a frown at her. "What about you? What're you waitin' around for either, at this point? First great-great-grandkid? An' then what?"

"Don't talk like this. You were the one who was all 'call me before you do anything rash'."

"S'true, innit?" He smiled, sudden and dazzling. "The last few weeks were somethin', weren't they, Slayer? God, that final fight--you were magnificent. Thought we'd both go under 'til the last second, it was glorious." He beamed at her. "Nothin' can touch you, what you do, how you do it. You shine."

Her face flushed warm, and she averted her eyes. Flattered. A little sorry for him, the old soldier pining for battles that were finished. Except she was an old soldier too, and there was always another battle, so why did he seem so pathetic? Why was she so eager to break away now the latest struggle was over?

Spike was shaking his head now. "New girl. New girl. Too many of 'em." He lurched to his feet, and moved off, astonishly lumbrous and clumsy. She watched him cross the lounge and disappear through the door towards the toilets.

When he emerged, she rose, to keep him sitting down there again, starting back on the beer. "Let's go to my room. C'mon."   


	3. Chapter 3

She had friends. It wasn't like she didn't have friends. True, most of them were the offspring of her original friends—she seemed to do much better at keeping ties going with Willow's and Giles's and Dawn's than with her own flesh and blood—but some were people she'd just collected over the years. They were all somehow, if only tangentially, involved with the slayage. She couldn't really deal with people she couldn't be 'out' to. Some were demons, or halfies. They were scattered around on five continents. Not so much good for spontaneous lunch-dates, but she never had to spend a major holiday alone if she wasn't inclined.

Spike snored slightly, his face buried in a pillow. He'd pitched onto the bed in his clothes and passed out almost as soon as she brought him inside, which startled her, because he'd seemed drunk but not _that_ drunk. Now he was out, he smelled rather boozy, but really not bad. Buffy sat propped up beside him, her ankles neatly crossed, sending texts from her phone.

Her eyes were starting to lose focus, the words swimming on the screen, when a hand skimmed into her line of sight and closed around the phone.

"Your whole bloody social life consists of typin' with your thumbs."

She let him relieve her of it, and assumed an air of readiness for whatever he had in mind. Talking. Kissing. Just no more drinks.

Spike got up on his elbows, yawning. He tossed the phone onto the nightstand. "Sorry to be such a bore."

"You're not a bore. C'mon, you're still grieving. I don't judge about that stuff." Xander had been gone a while, but she knew grief had a way of erupting after the fact.

"Least I didn't drool into your pillows." He glanced around at her. "You should sleep. I'll go. Really only meant to say goodbye."

She laid a hand on his back to keep him down. "Stay. Relax. Later there can be sex. And I thought we were going to go over to Paris for a while. Wouldn't you like that? We could find some interesting trouble there."

"Did we say—?" He blinked. "Wasn't sure what I was dreamin' an' what ... been a dreamy fellow, lately. You really want to go to Paris?"

"Just stay, Spike. Unless you're hungry. Do you need to feed?"

"Dunno." He squinted. "You never answered my question."

"What question?" Her belly seized up. She knew what question. What she did her best not to think about. What he was out of bounds to ask.

_What are you waiting around for?_

Or: _How many times am I obliged to save the world before I get to check out for good?_

Beside her came a familiar crunching sound. When she looked over at him again, Spike was fanged out. She could hear him breathing through his mouth, it sounded like an approaching storm heard underwater.

"Sick of pretendin' to be a man. Would like to wreck this bloody room, an' savage you, an' go out like the great slaverin' beast I ought to be."

He didn't move, and she felt no need to tense. She brought her hand from his back up into his hair, digging into his scalp, caressing him. "You're still drunk. You're tired."

He snarled a little, low in his throat.

Buffy was sympathetic. She had those times too, when she sort of wished she could just be evil. Just use her powers for _bad_. Just get lost.

She could imagine going out and plucking someone off the street, dragging him back up here, holding him down for Spike to feed on. Someone succulent. Watching him dig in deep, watching him get sated.

Spike reared up onto his hands and knees, shook off her touch. Sprang to his feet. When he opened one of the big sash windows, a cold moist blast of air and traffic noise rushed in, as if the room was a vacuum.

He stared down into the street. "Sorry to be such a bloody bore."

"Would you knock that off?" she said. But he was already gone.       

 

 

For two days he didn't return her messages. Irked, she postponed her flight. On the third day she went by his flat in late afternoon, when the watery winter sun was setting, casting long shadows in the streets. But he didn't answer the buzzer. She returned later in the evening, and still nothing.

No one at the Council offices had heard from him either.

It was only then that it occurred to her that she'd misinterpreted him. Their last evening, everything he'd said in the cocktail bar—about goodbye, about answering the question, swung into a different, far more dire perspective. Had she been so dulled out to the clues he was throwing that she'd missed it? He might've been telling her.

That he was ready to end it. To dust.

My God, Buffy thought, would he _do_ that?

The mere idea was a kidney punch.

_No. No. NO._

It made her furious enough to go on the hunt. She hit London's more venerable vampire haunts, the sorts of places Spike would've known all his unlife, where he'd be known, or known of. But no one she asked, or leaned on, or beat up, had seen William The Bloody.

The search ate up the next few nights, let her postpone the potential for her own grief, which meanwhile splashed up into her consciousness at odd moments, corrosive and foul as a midnight reflux.

Fuck you, Spike. FUCK YOU, you stupid vampire.

She tried to focus instead on the baby twins. Two little girls with scrunched up faces: Daisy and Rose O'Connor. Their photo was on her little screen all the time, it was turning into a talisman. She told herself she ought to fly to them. She liked Joey's wife, and Joey's wife liked her—probably she'd be happy for some help. Diaper-and-burping duty, it could be good, Buffy told herself. Good to spend some time with the people whose world she'd just saved.

_Spike, you unutterably selfish bastard. How dare you seduce me and then just check out? HOW DARE YOU?_

She kicked at his door, and the wood shattered against her foot.

"Shit." She hadn't meant to do that.

"Oi. What're you doin?"

Spike's flat was a ground floor in an old house, part of a Regency row, with its own entrance beneath the front steps. He stood now on the other side of the iron area paling, looking down at her from the pavement. The streetlamp above him tinged his pale hair orange, like his head was on fire. His hands were sunk deep in his leather pockets, and a cigarette dangled from his lip.

" _Me_? Where have you _been_?"

"Bender," he said, with the same inflection that he'd say _down the shops_. Swinging open the gate, he descended to her. "Thought you'd gone home."

He had his keys out; she followed him inside. He knelt to look at the broken wood. "Will need a whole new door."

When he straightened up, she met him with a roundhouse punch.

His head snapped back like a rubber bulb; blood shooting from his nose.

The heel of his hand jammed up against his nostrils, he gave her a narrow-eyed stare, eyes glittering gold. "What the fuck—?"

"That's to show you I care, since there seems to be some misunderstanding on that front!"

"For beatin' my face in? Remember when you used to!"

"You can be such a turd," she muttered, yanking his hand down, tugging him towards the bathroom. " _I_ can remember that too." She added, just because she knew it would hurt him, "I often wondered how Xander lived with you all that time. I really did."

Spike snarled. She started to dab at his bleeding nose with some toilet paper, but he pushed her away.

"Me? I'm a bastard?"

"You must've seen my messages. You could've at least sent me a text so I'd know you weren't _dead_."

"Chucked my phone in the Thames."

She wondered if the bender was still in progress. But he didn't smell drunk, and he was clean, except for the blood that now spattered his clothes. She itched to hit him again. She could picture just really getting into it. Make a wreck of the place, like he'd wanted to the other night, before jumping out the window.

Spike seemed aware of that danger; when he went for her, it was demon-fast, pinning her against the wall, his mouth on hers sharp and abrupt as a slap, his knee coming up between hers with pre-emptive force.

She shoved him off so hard he tumbled backwards; hearing his head crack against the lino, she winced.

He sprang up with a snarl, fanged out and grinning like an evil puppet. "Come on then!"

"You really want to bust up the place?"

"Be most excitin' thing that ever happened here in warty old watcher's flat. Might as well. But fair warning, you're gonna spread 'em for me when your beat-down's done."

 _Crude much?_ But that wasn't what bothered her. "I'm not administering a beat down to you."

He cocked his head, his eyes bright like an animal's. "No? Thought you were."

"Spike—"

"What else you been doin' since you came to London with me?"

Again her perspective reeled. It was like a gut-kick that took the breath out of her. She turned against the counter, staring at the tea and sugar boxes there, waiting for the spin to stop.

 _Whoa_.

"I haven't been paying enough attention." She turned back to him then, and was relieved when, after a few tense seconds, he let the game-face go. But his blue eyes were dark, half-shuttered. Full of suspicion. "I can be so stupid."

She'd gone so long without the very thing that drove Spike's spirit, that she was capable of not even seeing it anymore.

A whole lifetime with Xander, their days and nights intertwined. Hardly ever apart for more than a few hours at a time. And now that was all over, and he'd been trying to pretend ever since that he wasn't left limbless.

She'd thought his offer, _better club in with me_ , was off-hand. She'd heard it as being for _her_ , a thrown bone she could catch or let drop at will. What else could it have meant, since it seemed so clear he wasn't in love with her any more than she was with him?

She'd entirely missed that he'd been counting on her to stay close.

Buffy went to him, laid a hand on his arm. "Spike, I didn't mean to slight you."  


	4. Chapter 4

Later, Spike said, "We're a pair of strangers really."

Sitting there with his head in her lap, petting it like a cat, her first impulse was to contradict him. But it was true. Most of what she knew about Spike, in the last two-thirds of a century, was at least second-hand. If you added it up, she hadn't spent a lot of face time with him and Xander since the first couple of years they were together, when they were all doing the Aurelian Investigations thing in L.A. That fell apart pretty quickly after they lost Vi.

In a way, she knew him more intimately as an enemy than a friend. Knew him more intimately as a series of memories, of tense sexual flashes and blows traded, than as a person.

Yet it felt right that his head should lie in her lap, that she should comfort him this way. She was grateful that he permitted her this, that he permitted it to himself. Behind them, the radiator clanked.

"We're old friends," she murmured. Since their aborted fight, she felt sleepy. She realized that the time of the evening when she'd want a cocktail or a big glass of wine was upon her, but she didn't want them enough to disturb their arrangement on the sofa. She couldn't think of the last time that anyone, man or child, had lain with his head in her lap.

"Buffy Summers."

"Old friends," she repeated, her tone low and soothing.

Spike was quiet for a while. Then he said, "How many times you done that?"

"Done what?" She didn't feel like talking. She wanted to drowse and go on caressing his feathery hair, enjoying the weight of him in her lap, his feline stillness.

"Iceland."

He _would_ go on thinking of life. She supposed she couldn't stop him. If nothing else had. All this time.

"That wasn't the first time." She mused, added, "I have no regrets."

"S'your choice, yeah. Just makes me sad."

"You think it does because you're sad about other things."

He was quiet again, until his hand came up to lie in front of his face, on her taut belly, pressing softly against her blouse and her skin and her stomach beneath. His hand that gave forth no warmth. "If I had my way I'd marry you an' get us a little house somewhere an' fill you with about a million babies."

She couldn't help her laugh. "Would you really?"

"I'd hang up my fangs an' turn into a bent old man an' die, for thirty years—even twenty years—of that with you."

"I thought," she said, teasing lightly, "that we were strangers."

"We'd get to know each other then, wouldn't we? Right well."

She laughed again. "I think you're more maternal than I am, Spike." She swallowed around a sudden knot in her throat. Memories flushing in from all sides, chagrin as she thought of Patrick and Joycey and Bill. Almost anyone would be more maternal than she was.

"We'd do all right. Pretty children an' none of 'em slayers. Could do all right with that."

Buffy bit her tongue. Spike's words filled her with tenderness for him, so she resisted her urge to tease. She didn't really believe what he was saying, not the letter of it. She just heard him saying _I'm lonely. And the purpose I thought I had, isn't working for me anymore._

Then he said, "I'm tired of all this night."

"Spike—"

"Or else I'm tired of my soul. Would like to be shed of one or t'other."

She stroked his head, wishing it would have some effect.

"Angel ever tell you 'bout a place called Pylea?"

"Yes. He told me stories. It's where he found poor Fred."

"That's the one. Not too pleasant in some ways, I gathered. But could walk in the sunlight there, an' see himself in a mirror."

"He told _me_ it was a place where his demon had nothing human in it at all. When he changed, he was a feral monster."

Spike shrugged. "You've got your details, an' I've got mine."

"You don't want to go to Pylea," Buffy said. "You don't want to be an old man." She leaned in closer to him. "We'll go to Paris tomorrow. Or, what was the other one? St Petersburg? I've never been there. Let's go to Russia. Sleigh rides in the snow, lots of different kinds of vodka, and don't they ice skate there? I like to ice skate."

Spike's silence stretched out. Finally he said, "Do you, pet? Didn't know that."

"Like you said, we need to get to know each other a little more. We should do that, yes? I think it'll be fun."

He sat up then, facing her at eye level. "An' what about the grand-kids?"

"They'll wait."

"Can go see 'em first. On the way."

"It's kind of the opposite direction."

"Earth's round." He cocked his head. She didn't care for how he studied her. "Could meet you in Petersburg, say in a fortnight's time."

Again she was too slow, but this time she caught up to him before too much damage was done. "Of course not. We're traveling together. We'll visit the babies together."

There, she'd been right. Spike's frown relaxed a little. "Your Joe an' his wife won't mind a vampire peerin' at 'em?"

"An old family friend?" Buffy said. "Why should they?"

"Didn't know if I was still that."

"Why, because Xander's gone? You think your all-access pass has been revoked?"

"Lots of things get revoked," Spike muttered.

"You can't be any more fraught for the O'Connors than I am," she said. "Come to think of it, I'll be glad to you with me. For a buffer." 


	5. Chapter 5

They went out after that, ostensibly to patrol, but it was more of a walk. Buffy took his hand. Part of him rebelled at the gesture—all this time he'd been with her, was it for nothing but pity? When had the slayer ever been so gentle and kind, especially to the likes of him? Already he was feeling foolish for indulging himself in melancholy with her, lying in her lap, whinging at her like a milksop. That couldn't be what she wanted him for, if indeed she wanted him for anything, now the latest apocalypse was averted.

He ought to fuck her. That would be what she wanted, more of that. Long and hard and no danger of being put up the spout. That was what he had for her, that she could get nowhere else.

She could take a deal of that, the tough old slayer.

She glanced up at him. "What are you frowning about?"

He crowded her back against the bricks, pinned her with his body.

Surprised, Buffy gasped, but didn't resist. He carved a kiss into her mouth, deep and probing; she opened, straining up into it, her hands curling around his shoulders.

It was just after four in the morning, the air wintry but not bitter, this part of London as quiet as it ever got. They were in a side street, standing against the blind brick side of an old house. Not out of sight were anyone across the way to rise and look out a window, but he didn't think she cared for that. Her breathing was rapid, she'd gone warm and radiant in his arms, and he thought of hitching up her hem and going into her, jogging her up against the cold bricks, buried to the cods in her wet hot delicious cunny. Drive her, satisfy her and make her forget what a weak sister he'd been a little while hence.

When he broke the kiss, she was panting, wriggling against him. "Right here?"

Without consideration, he found he'd dropped into game-face. Her aroma filled his sensorium, stronger than before, even as he could also grasp the olfactory landscape for hundreds of yards all around them, people, animals, trash set out for collection. At sight of him, Buffy gasped again. Her hand was worming in between them, working at his buttons. He let out a low liquid snarl when her fingers made contact with his prick, and she let out a sigh that told him he'd done right. This was what she wanted, to be put up against the bricks by a monster. Her pulse racketed, she danced a little from foot to foot until he took hold of her, hoisted her up, and then she grappled him with her legs, grunting.

"Eager little cunt," Spike breathed. "You like this, do you?"

She nodded wildly, her head bobbling against the wall. He buried his mouth in her neck, let his desire loose, snapping into her hard. He didn't really mean to break her skin, but when it happened, and Buffy let loose a muffled cry against his shoulder, he bore down harder.

Her blood had the rich powerful flavor of present death. He hadn't tasted any such in over a lifetime, it filled him with an overheated rush, a thrill of rage and lust followed by an immediate kick of hard regret, like a sudden blow to the back of the skull. He eased off. Buffy clung to his shoulders as if she was being saved from drowning, her legs wrapped tight around his flanks. He couldn't tell if the sounds she made were cries of pain or woe or pleasure, but she never stopped flexing around him, her cunny supple and tight as a fist. Her blood still flowed into his mouth, though he'd stopped sucking on the wound, his fangs loosening their grip on the torn flesh.

Buffy came then, bringing herself off by her own frantic exertions on him. For a moment she was still, entirely dependent on him as he held her against the wall, her head moving slowly like she'd awakened to find herself hanging here, impaled. He drew back. She met his eyes with a fluttery smile. "I didn't know" she murmured, sounding drunk, pole-axed. "You never did this before—" She hitched herself up on his shoulders, tasted his blood-wet mouth. Her cunt rippled around him, twitching, coaxing. He could feel her smile even as his mouth engulfed hers.

The idea came to him, from the depths of the internal hell that his demon dwelt in, that he could have it at last. The prize he'd long since given up on, stopped wanting, here it was, dangling unresistant against his lips. He could take Buffy Summers all the way. He could harvest her life. He could make her like him, make her his.

He couldn't believe how easy she was, about what he'd just done. It made him angry, made him want to shake her, for letting her guard down so far. Almost as angry as he was with himself, for losing his own.

She began to come again, wriggling, coaxing. "Fuck me, Spike. Get yourself off. Big bad Spike—"

He spilled then, his climax barely noticeable after the intensity of her blood. He wanted to get away from her, but even when she had her feet on the ground again, when he'd pulled free and stuffed himself back into his jeans, Buffy was still holding onto his shoulders. He couldn't look at her now, though he sensed she was trying to make him engage with her eyes—which wasn't like her, really.

"Spike," she whispered. She was on tiptoe, in his face. He had to force his bumpies down. The fresh blood, blood of a slayer, lit him up with wild urges. _You needy pillock_ , he thought. _Just put yourself worse off than you were before._

He forced himself to look at her. In the streetlight glow, her face was half orange, half shadow.

She said, "I didn't know that was going to happen."

No anger in her voice.

"I ... I liked it. It was good. Did it—did you—?"

Part of him wanted to prostrate himself, beg her forgiveness. Part of him wanted to punch her in the face, punch her and punch her until she whipped the stake out of her coat pocket and drove it into him.

He crashed his fist into the brick. The pain cracked high and red, a firework going off in the midst of the harsh high of her blood. Buffy grabbed for his wrist as he pulled back to do it again.

"No!"

He went for her with the other hand; could feel how her throat would flex when he crushed her windpipe. But she caught that too, and for a moment they were locked in a motionless struggle. Her eyes were enormous, taking him in. "Oh Spike. What's happening here? What is this?"

Why wasn't she angry and imperious, why wasn't she punishing him? Her voice didn't even rise above a whisper, nothing to disturb the sleepers in the rooms above.

"Come on," she said, suddenly tugging on his hand. "We can't stay here. Come on." She broke into a run, and he had no choice but to run after her, his hand in her grip.

It was only when they rounded the corner in front of her hotel, that he understood what she'd done. Run him for an hour like a dog, so he'd be half-tame again now the wintry dawn was breaking behind the grey clouds. As they mounted the steps towards the shining gold and glass doors, she slipped an arm around his ribs, so they looked to the uniformed doorman like a giddy pair of lovers, rushing in to bed.   


	6. Chapter 6

She was giddy in the lift, the first time they'd stopped pelting at top speed since she'd grabbed him and taken off. The side-walls of the box were mirrored, but luckily they were alone, no one else to see that it was only Buffy who appeared in an infinite parallax of reflections. In her tightly-belted trench coat she looked small and slipping. She looked happy. It confused him.

The doors opened. She stepped off, turning towards him. "You okay?"

He shrugged. Considered pressing the button, going back down, back to his broken bender.

Buffy reached, tugged his sleeve. "I'm not done with you yet, mister."

The corridor of the posh hotel was silent, thickly carpeted, everything gilt and pink and cream. As the lift doors closed behind him, she backed him softly against the wall, going up on tiptoe against him. "Don't be angry. It's okay." Girlish whisper. She smelled of dried blood and dried sex. He could still taste her in his mouth. "Kiss me?" She was smiling like a child. How could she be so obtuse?

"I'm not your pet."

She stepped back, the smile dying. "W-what?"

Even as he spoke the words, he felt he was acting daft. "Don't want to play this game." This was madness. She was going to think he'd gone mad.

"Let's not talk out here." She started towards her suite. Again he thought of just getting out of there. But the pull she exerted on him was too strong.

Inside, she faced him, brow knit. "What are talking about? Did something happen that wasn't consensual? Because it sure felt like _your_ idea to fuck out there. And to bite me."

 _You let me._ His eyes burned. If he wasn't careful he'd be crying.

In his head, he heard Xander's voice. After every visit with Buffy, Xander would say _You going to leave me for her?_ Xander's original fear, turned to a habitual joke, a sort of juju against all fears of abandonment, of unfaithfulness, of the erosion of love. And depending on what was going on with them otherwise, Spike would answer in different ways: with a snort and an eye-roll. With a muttered, _An' what if I did?_ With a possessive kiss that bent Harris back.

It was Harris he loved for a whole life time. Buffy ... Buffy had prompted him to seek his soul, but she wasn't ... they weren't .... He blinked, trying to pull his thoughts together. None of this had anything to do with what he was so angry about. He couldn't even think straight.

"Talk to me, Spike!"

How many decades since he'd sunk his teeth into anyone alive? "Not gonna be the death of you." That wasn't it either, but it seemed like a good place holder while he waited to able to say what he really meant. Or even to understand it. Shame spurted through him in gobs like spunk. Like when he'd beat off as a lad, knowing he shouldn't touch it, shouldn't feel that way. Thinking no one else ever did such a filthy thing, couldn't possibly.

Buffy blushed a little, and didn't meet his eye. "I never asked you to be. Why did you bite me if you're going to be so sore about it?"

His throat was a knot; he shook his head. Squinting suspiciously, she prodded him in the chest. "Please tell me you weren't just trying for a little suicide-by-slayer back there. _Please_ tell me you wouldn't use me that way. _Especially_ while I'm making god-damn love to you, you _BASTARD_." The blow really came out of nowhere, catching him just so in the solar plexus, so he was on his knees, the air knocked out of him.

He expected another blow, braced for it. But she was crying now, receding across the room. The bedroom door slammed. No way was he following her in there.

Sick with misery, he picked himself up. His hand was on the knob to let himself out of the suite, when the door opened. She didn't appear, only shouted, "Don't you dare sneak out!" Another slam, not quite so loud this time.

He dropped into a chair.       

 

 

"I don't have time for this _shit!_ " She emerged in full storm.

He didn't raise his eye level past her kneecaps. "Time? We're livin' forever."

She stalked closer. "Spike."

He was staring at the floor, the agitation of imbibing her still vying with his numbing disgust.

"Spike." Her hot little hand on his forehead, rudely tipping his head up so he had to face her.

"You began this." She wasn't hollering anymore. The tears still stood in her eyes. "In Iceland, _you_ kissed me, _you_ said we should go to bed and do it the right way. You invited me to come back here. So I don't understand. I thought we were beginning an affair, but you think I'm tormenting you."

"An affair," he echoed.

"Don't you dare mock my word choice. I am trying to _talk to you_. Or would you prefer—" She stopped. "You would. You really _want_ me to beat you up." She stepped back. "Oh Spike."

"Slayer—"

"Please don't call me that right now." Her voice was soft, she sounded lost. Backing up to sit in the opposite chair, tense and forward against his feigned collapse.

He was afraid she'd start to cry again.

"I thought we were trying to help each other a little. Be good to each other. I get that you're grieving, but ... I think you're just taking it out on me right now." She turned her head, as if someone else had come into the room. She couldn't even look at him. But he could see the wound on her neck. She'd made no effort to cover it up.

"Why'd you let me do it?"

She gasped, her attention snapping back on him. "Let you—"

"You just let it happen."

" _I!_ You never tried that with me before! I thought ..." She blushed then. "I thought it meant something."

He stared at the drapes. "Never laid a tooth on Harris."

She didn't flinch. "I thought, for _us_ ... that's why I _let_ you." Her fingers made a gingerly foray over the broken skin. "I liked it. Is that what you're so angry at me for?"

"Not angry at you."

"Don't start lying to me on top of everything else."

Her reasonableness, her refusal to make herself impregnable and repellant, piled on his shame.

"We are each other's oldest friend," she said. A little laugh escaped her. "Is that your idea of hell?"

"Might be yours."

"It isn't. But if you can't tell me what's really going on with you, then ..."

"You know all about it. Smart girl you are. Diagnosed me top to bottom." He rocked to his feet.

"I push you away. Then you push me away. And around and around we go." She rose. "We're not really friends after all. My mistake. I could just call you for the next family funeral?" She opened the suite door, held it as if to usher him out.

He knew that if he went through it, that would be that. Calm and vulnerable as she was, he could still smell the anger at her core; wasn't so stupid as not to grasp that he'd hurt her. It amazed him a bit, that she still had the capacity for that kind of pain. A century ago he'd have given anything for the chance to have such an effect on her.

Now he was just sorry. "I'm a bad rude man. Clumsy bugger."

"Is that supposed to be an apology?"

He shuffled a little. "Yeah. Yeah, it's an apology. Don't chuck me out, Buffy."

She stood by the open door, not closing it yet. Their voices were low, nothing to disturb the other hotel guests. He could hear that people were waking up now, screens were on in other rooms, showers, voices.

"You liked it."

"I did. I liked it, and I liked that you just took it. I liked that we seemed to be in a place where ... where we were trusting each other so completely."

He'd hurt her good. Coming up to her, he pushed the door shut. She let him do it, let him face her, standing close. "Forgive me for bein' a pillock. Lemme make it up to you."

"How are you going to do that?"

"Dunno yet. But I'll try if you'll stay with me."

"I never wanted you to be my pet. I don't need a dog. A friend, a lover—those I want."

"That'll be me. Gimme a chance."

He opened his arms; she stepped into them.


	7. Chapter 7

   "So how was it?"

"What?" Christ, why'd she have to be such a chatterbox? He didn't remember her being like that. "Don't need to talk about it."

They'd gotten in to bed—the impersonal hotel bed that was the size of a fortress, plenty of chaste space between them—and gone to sleep. He was amazed now that he'd dropped off, and sorry to be awake again so soon. Especially to find her apparently alert as a bunny, propped on pillows her phone in her hand, typing with her thumbs.

"Oh, we need to talk about it." She set the device aside. "There was a time when tasting me what was the most important thing in your world. A _long_ time ago, of course. But ... I just have to wonder. You finally do it, and was it ...."

"Said I was sorry."

"I know. I'm not asking for more apology, I'm asking what it was like?"

Why was he always attracted to women who could make him writhe inside? "Muffed it, didn't I?"

"So you were disappointed?"

"Buffy, know I was out of line. Dunno why I did it."

"Really? You really don't know why? I think it was because _you_ thought that was what I wanted. That I must want you to rough me up, to try it on with me. Because you get this idea that somehow you acting like a vampire is all you're good for with me, and you wanted me to put you in your place. And then I didn't put you in your place. So along with being angry at yourself, you got angry with me."

"Always sensed you'd have a kink for it," he muttered. "Back in the day an' all. An' it _is_ what I'm good for, yeah? Because you _do_ have a kink."

"And there you go again. I thought you weren't going to do that to me anymore."

"Do what."

"Act like I'm using you. I know I'm not. Not this time." She shook her head. "Don't manipulate me into punishing you. You don't need to be punished and neither do I. I thought we wanted each other's company."

He grunted. Checking off the box next to _Neither agree nor disagree._

"All that time with Xander, he couldn't teach you your worth?"

"He taught me," Spike said. The question made him sullen, like when she'd taunted him earlier, wondering how Harris put up with him. In all those decades there were always people who never stopped seeing them as an odd couple, an anomaly. People who were their friends.

Even her. Who was supposed to know them both so well.

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Have you really forgotten ...." He glanced up then, in time to see her glance off, so he couldn't catch her eye. Her cheek was pale. "Forgotten that at the beginning, I wanted you too?"

"Thought you did." Ancient history, this was ancient history, how could she bring this up? Why? Surely what they were negotiating now wasn't about that kind of love. She ought to be past that by now, old woman with grown grandchildren that she was. "Only 'til you saw Angel again. Couldn't have gone any other way, than you marryin' him. You two were meant for sweethearts. You were each other's reward."

"Reward? You really think like that?"

"Yeah, I do." He thumped the pillow. "Only sorry you didn't get to keep him longer. Liam died too soon."

"He did. But you know ... shit, I shouldn't say this."

"Then don't."

She ignored him, "I loved him dearly, I loved him every day. But I used to think too, what if. What if you and Xander hadn't happened, what if you'd wanted me when I wanted you. The life we could've had."

"Don't talk nonsense. He gave you everythin'. You an' him were everythin'. That's _life_. You were both _alive_."

Buffy moved then, leaning in close, so her nose was inches from his. "You say that like it makes my marriage worthier than yours. You weren't alive, and yet you and Xander were partners all his life. I thought you two seemed pretty happy, all in all. Pretty satisfied with each other. How come you think you were good enough for him but not for me? If he were here, I think that would piss him off."

"Don't ask me that."

"Does it feel like betraying him, to be with me now? Is that it?"

Again he was filled with that ballooning urge to punch her. Buffy seemed to feel it; she drew back a little. "Did you ... did you two ever think about turning him?"

"An' what a nosy bitch you are today."

His snarl made her flinch.

"I'm sorry. I just—I'm just trying to have a conversation here."

"If you must know, yeah, there was a time when it was an issue. When Harris was headin' towards forty, he got it into his sweet head that we'd be better off bein' birds of a feather. He was terrified of that, of course, like the good sane fellow he was, but he pretended he wasn't, an' he badgered me day an' night to turn him. Kept sayin' it would be good for me. kept sayin' he was at his peak and the time was right." The memories of that period in their relationship, the blunt frustrating struggle of it, piled up in his mind like thunder clouds behind a mesa. He realized it made him feel a little better, this forced recollection of something besides Harris's final sufferings, or earlier goodness. They'd been capable of towering conflicts, fierce fights. Easy to forget now he was gone. "We almost split over it. I was leery though, to let him out of my sight, that he might get blotto an' go put himself in some other demon's way."

"Oh Spike."

"He was so afraid of it, y'see. An' what he feared, he used to want to run to it, confront it. Hated to think he was anyway a coward. Of course he wasn't. But he was right to fear bein' made over into such a abomination."

She curled a hand around his. "You're not an abomination."

"I am. Obscene creature with a soul thrust into it, that's what I am, when all's said an' done. Even if he could've had his soul back too, Harris as a vampire was somethin' I'd die before I'd permit."

The whole question had come up again with that initial cancer diagnosis. And that time Spike had gone halfway to agreeing that it would be better to turn him, to continue their life together, than to let Xander suffer and die. They'd hardly talked about it at all, but there was a long time when the idea existed between them, like an escape hatch Xander could turn to if things got bad enough. Spike had told himself then that if Xander asked for it, if he asked for it clearly, this time he wouldn't refuse. But the request never came.

She stroked his hand, and he could feel her looking at him with compassion, but he couldn't meet her eyes; it was all he could do not to burst out crying. Why hadn't he done what he always said? He'd never wanted to outlive Harris, not for more than a day. Living with him, watching him age and then sicken, he'd imagined that he shared the pattern of that human life; that his own existence would follow that pattern. He'd taken an ease from the notion, a certainty. And yet here it was a few years, and he'd gone on postponing his quietus. Every time he visited the grave he meant to stay there until sun-up, flame out and be done, and every time he'd shirked.

He told himself it was for the mission. The Council needed him, the slayers needed him.

Bullshit.

 _He_ was the coward. Whatever that heaven was that Buffy had gone to when she'd been dead, was never going to admit him. That was where Harris was now, he was certain of it. But his own spirit and Harris's weren't going to be reunited anywhere.

Spike yanked his hand away.

Buffy said, "Your sadness, your regrets, don't scare me." Her tone now was playful.

"No?"

"No." She reached for him again, smoothing her fingers through the crisp curls above his temple. "Be a little kinder to yourself, though. Like you always were to Xander. Like you can be to me."

"You're bein' uncharacteristically patient. Dunno if I can get on with it."

"The slayer cutting you some slack. I guess that's your cross to bear here." She smiled. "Your idea of hell."

Her fingers were still tangled in his hair; she tugged him closer. "I'm still waiting for that kiss."

He kissed her. She looked at him, still playful. He didn't know what to say, quite what was called for in this moment.

"You're really good."

He heard this as an assurance of his place on the right side of the Great Line, until he realized that she meant his kissing. She liked the way he kissed. That was what she wanted right now. He came in for another. Her hands were on his face. "Kiss my pussy?" she whispered.

"Yeah, all right." There was no uncertainty now. He was to begin to work off his debt of presumption and anger and blood by pleasuring her. He still felt the effects of her coursing in him; would go on feeling it for hours, the preternatural energy that roiled with his sadness, oil and water that wouldn't mix.

She laid a finger on his lips. "You want to?"

"Course I want to."

"We could fuck instead. Or—"

"Your quim's not gonna kiss itself. Give me it."

She was blushing now. "If you're not ready, we could get up. Or you could go back to sleep. Maybe you want to be alone. I don't mean to impose—"

What she'd said before, about making love to him— _I was making god-damn love to you!_ —came back into his head, echoing as half rebuke, half delight. He knew those weren't words Buffy said easily, without meaning them. "Like it when you tell me what you want. Like licking out your little box an' making you shake. Now give." He pounced on her, pinning her with his body, drawing her thighs apart. She relaxed when his mouth touched her, and after a moment, a mewing sigh escaped her, and she tensed in a new way, her hips rippling as if to feed herself to him. After a few minutes her hand found its way to where his cock was trapped between his belly and the bed, and made a warm fist around it, skinning and unskinning the head in time to the rhythm of his tongue.

Later, after a long time between her thighs, followed by a fuck, she drowsed in his arms, her head pillowed on his shoulder. It did amaze him, to find himself with her, the subject of her patience and kindness and apparent affection. Really must be down to sheer longevity; she'd always been most at ease with the people she'd known longest, and who else remained but him? He thought about what she'd asked before, how was it? It had been forever since he'd longed to drink her down, and his impulse to bite her had surprised himself more than her. She'd taken that assault so gracefully.

And she was right ... he was disappointed. Hadn't enjoyed it properly, and now he was left with a craven craving urge for it—not her so much, but the experience so long tamed, of taking prey, of feeding. Except for biting the occasional demon in battle—only he didn't much care for demon blood—he'd been on the wagon for over a century.

Spoiled that now, and for what?


	8. Chapter 8

"So you two are an item?" Joe said, pitching his voice just above a whisper. They were in the garden behind the house, inspecting his roses in the bright sunlight. "He can't hear us from here, can he?"

" _He_ probably can," Buffy said, smiling. "He can hear houseflies washing their hands three blocks away. And yes, we're seeing each other." She drew one of the fat-faced roses to her nose, took a deep inhalation. "Kind of a silly expression, _seeing each other_."

"Seeing each other naked, is pretty much what it means," Joe said.

"Young man, I am your _grandmother_."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. So keep it clean."

Joe pouted. "Clean is all we've got around here. Luz hasn't been interested since she started the second trimester."

"Huh—oh. Well, that's tough."

"It's a little tough. So how long has it been going on?"

"You just said, since the second—oh. Oh. Spike. A little while. Since we worked the last apocalypse together."

"There was an apocalypse?"

"Well, there would've been, but we caught it in time."

Joe stared at the roses, blinking.

"All of this is probably completely absurd to you, right?"

"Huh?"

"Us. I'm showing you my kids, my garden, you're probably thinking about—I can't even imagine. These epic battles between good and evil. All of this has got to just be small. Insignificant. Silly."

"All of this is what I _do_ it for."

This wasn't the first time she'd heard this argument, or misgiving, or whatever you wanted to call it, and usually it annoyed her, but she tried to curb her irritation now. She hated having this discussion, having to assure the other person that she really was deeply engaged with the puppies and flowers and that was why she worked so hard to _save_ them. Because in a way it was completely true.

She'd lost track of all these good things years ago, and while she liked to visit them, while she told herself they _were_ what life was, there was definitely an insignificance factor. She just couldn't help it.

"I always thought you do it because you have the power. Once you've got that power, you've got to use it, right? To be it."

Boy did Joseph need to get laid. "What are these roses called again?"

"This is an English Garden rose." He took a pair of secaturs from his pocket. "Shall I cut you one? You could pin it to your sweater."

"No—no! Don't kill it. I like to see them and smell them as they are."

"You sure? Because in a couple of days they'll be overblown anyway."

Buffy thought, for the eleventy-billionth time, how much Joe looked like Angel. She couldn't figure out if this felt freaky to her just because, or because she herself still looked twenty-four. If she was a cragged and dessicated old lady, with a grandson who was a dead-ringer for her long-dead husband, would that be so bizarre? She'd been told often enough that it was a myth that old people lost their sexuality, their interest in all the kinds of connection and human business that takes up mind-space in the prime of life; it was just that no one wanted to contemplate old people's needs or desires that way.

And it wasn't like she _desired_ Joe. It was just that his big tall amiable presence, the timbre of his voice, even some of his mannerisms, _reminded_ her, in the way that neither dreams, nor looking at photographs, could do.

And oddly, she never saw anything of herself in him. Or even Patrick and LeeAnn.

Just Angel. Who had died before Joe was born.

"I'm sure. They just fill the air with such a wonderful fragrance."

"Unlike the little shit-machines inside. I mean—bite my tongue—our darling cherubim."

Buffy squinted up at him. "Uh oh. I think you inherited _my_ mothering bone."

"I'm not the mother. Fortunately."

"Are you and Luz okay? Is this a cry for help?"

"Not a cry for help. But I guess we could use some. I'm glad you guys came. Luz is an orphan too, we haven't exactly been inundated with family."

"Oh. I imagined—well, good. Good, I hope we will be. A help. And not an inundation."       

 

  
She'd married into kind of a strange family. But then all families were strange, there were always weird stories when you got down to it. She knew that. At first she'd thought some of the stuff she heard at O'Connor gatherings was metaphorical, or sort of ... just ... Irish. They were American Irish, not Irish Irish, but Luz had an idea that Irish people maybe believed a lot of stuff, like about leprechauns and selkies and what-all that they knew wasn't really true but they all liked to pretend about it together, tell stories and shit.

So at first when she heard about the stuff about Joe's grandmother being a vampire slayer and his grandfather a former vampire, she chalked it up to that. And when she was introduced to the grandmother, at first she figured they were all pulling her leg. She went along with it, like it was a test, because here she was, this Latina girl, a stranger to them all, no family of her own to present, wanting to be taken in by them, and maybe if she acted all cool with everything they put in front of her, they'd accept her.

She never thought Joe or any of them was crazy. They didn't talk the vampire thing very much. The so-called grandmother, Buffy, didn't talk about it at all, except for saying "Yep, I sure do," when Luz said, "So I hear you kill vampires." After a while, seeing her at weddings and a few other family parties, talking to her when she phoned Joe, Luz decided she must be a cousin or something, that Joe had grown up with her and that was why they seemed sort of close. It didn't seem all that important, family eccentricity. It was just great to be in love, and to finally _have_ a family.

But she had to wonder about Buffy's boyfriend. When Joe told her they were coming to visit, he said Will was a vampire. He said it in that same casual voice that he used when he was telling her shit about his grandfather, who he'd never even known. Wild stuff, that the old man was a bloodsucker who got turned back into a human, which was like one of those lurid Mexican movies she'd find on late at night if she couldn't sleep. He said that they'd have to keep the blinds drawn while Spike was there, that he'd burn if the sunlight touched him, but she shouldn't worry because he had a soul and didn't bite people, and she thought, yeah, right, more of this foolishness.

But this morning Joe had gone all around the downstairs, making sure the windows were covered. He'd parked his car on the street so Buffy could drive hers directly into the garage, and that car turned out to have dark tinted windows like a star's. Then when she first saw him, with his white skin and white hair, like you hardly ever saw here in SoCal, she though, _Holy shit maybe it's true_.

But of course it wasn't. The guy _maybe_ had that allergy to sunlight, she'd heard about that. Or else he was just playing along with the O'Connor family prank.

Though he didn't act like he was pranking. He was quiet and polite in his crisp white shirt, and when she let him hold Rosie he beamed like she'd given him a big gift, cradling her in his arms with an apparently practiced ease.

So now the babies were quiet and Joe was out showing Buffy the garden, Luz poured out more coffee, and settled down with Daisy. "So tell me, you in on the joke?"

He looked up from making faces at the baby. "What joke's that, pet?"

"Buffy tell you they were playing a trick on me? That you're supposed to be ... you know." Now she was embarrassed. She whispered it. "A vampire."

His dark eyebrows shot up, like this was the first he'd heard about it.

So probably he did have that allergy to sunlight thing. And now he was insulted. Way to go, Luz.

"Look, I'm sorry, we just met, you're a guest, please don't go thinking—"

"You think they're trickin' you?"

She shrugged. "The O'Connors, they always been good to me, ever since Joe and I started dating, but I guess they like to have their fun. They got these family _tales_. You're dating Buffy, so you'll probably hear 'em too, and—"

"Ah, pet." Will rose slowly, and set Rosie back into her table-top cradle. The baby woke, looking unhappy about being put down. Will looked unhappy about it too.

She glanced towards the window, to see if Joe and Buffy were on their way back in, but the shades were pulled. Joe had had to buy a shade for the kitchen door—they'd never had one there before. She'd thought he was going a little far with it, to take that much trouble, but they were nice shades, and she supposed it was nice to have them. Luz started apologizing—Christ, they'd just gotten here and already she'd messed the whole thing up—when Will cut her off.

"Thought you understood. Understood who you'd invited into your house." Will stood away from the table, his hands held up, glancing around uncertainly, like he wanted to leave.

Her cheeks were burning. "Please, I don't mean to say nothin' against anybody. Sit down. Have some more coffee. Eat something. _Please_."

"Can't do that, if you don't understand." Will backed up towards the door that opened onto the back deck and the garden. He didn't open it; just rapped on the glass with his knuckles, then stood almost at attention, his eyes fixed on her, on the babies beside her on the table, until they heard Buffy and Joe's voices, their footsteps on the planks. He moved off from the door—careful to avoid the spill of bright sun that came in when it opened.

Joe said, "Whazzup? Buff, more coffee?"

"I'll have some more."

Will said, "Hold up a mo', Slayer. Luz here has a question 'bout me."

"About you?"

"She doesn't know what I am. I'd better show her, but first you'd better make it clear it's no joke."

Luz was worried now. What the hell kind of foolishness was this?

Buffy was frowning now. "Spike—"

"Invited me in here, gave me her kitten to hold, an' doesn't know—"

"Aren't you being a little over-dramatic? Did everyone you and Xander ever hung out with know? I'm gonna bet not so much. Anyway, of course Luz knows—she's an O'Connor." Buffy faced her now, smiling like a saleslady. "How many times have you heard the stories? I mean, c'mon."

"Stories," Luz echoed. "You folks love stories."

Will said, "Luz, I am a vampire."

She looked at him again, and this time his face was different. Repressing a scream, she snatched up a baby carrier in each hand, shoved past her husband and bolted out into the sunlight.   


	9. Chapter 9

"Luz, I didn't realize."

Her grand-daughter in law, with her two now wailing infants, had retreated to a bench under a trellis at the bottom of the garden. She had her back to Buffy and didn't look around when she spoke.

"Luz? Can I help you with them?" Buffy came closer, reached for one of the babies. Luz batted at her hand, as if it was a diving insect.

"Get out of here! I don't know you! I don't know you!"

She was in tears, edging towards frantic as the babies screamed.

Where the hell was Joe? He ought to be out here with bells on, rescuing his wife.

Buffy said, "I didn't know that you didn't understand. We always told you the truth. I thought you _knew_."

"Stories! You tell stories!" She shot up. "What is that man you brought here? What is wrong with him?"

"He's my lover. He's perfectly all right. He's just different. He and I, we're both a little different. I thought you grasped that." Her head was buzzing. She'd have liked a cold compress and a dark room. Being the matriarch of a family was a whole hell of a lot more stressful than facing an apocalypse. There were no weapons for the matriarch thing. "Come back inside, we can talk. Spike—Will—isn't going to hurt you or the kids."

"What is he? What is he? What is he?" Wild-eyed, Luz seemed to be caught in a loop. Buffy laid a hand on her bunched-up shoulder.

"He's harmless. I promise you, he's harmless. He's a monster, okay? Monsters are real. But he's all right."

Luz dark brown look was a dagger. Joe appeared then, but instead of facing his wife, taking her in his arms, explaining, he grabbed up the baby carriers and started back towards the house. She dived after, screaming, and Buffy was treated to the spectacle of a tug-of-war before she pulled herself together enough to separate them with a maternal shout. The babies were going off like air-raid sirens. Luz was in a cyclone of tears. Buffy prodded Joe in the belly. "Will you please deal with this like a _grown-up_?

She went back into the house. Spike wasn't in the kitchen. Buffy feared he'd taken the car and left, but the keys were still where she'd left them beside her bag on the counter. Then she heard the screen chattering, and found him in the finished basement, a sitcom rerun blaring.

She snapped it off. "Why did you fang out up there?"

"Wasn't bein' aggressive. She asked me what I am, an' I had to show her."

"You had to."

"Yeah."

"Spike." She dropped onto the sofa beside him, not knowing who she was angry at.

"An' to answer your question," he said, as if she'd just asked it, "yeah, there were some people who knew us an' didn't know about me. But with Harris, it wasn't so important, what I am."

This surprised her. "It wasn't?"

"A lot less than you know. In the bedroom ... but like I said, never drew blood. Otherwise ... he wasn't part of the mission. Neither was I, most of the time, 'cept when I got called in, an' then I'd leave home an' join the fight elsewhere."

"Okay, yeah."

"Whereas you. You're the slayer."

"I'm the slayer."

"An' I'm the vampire you fuck." He took out a cigarette and lit up. "I'm a vampire. An' your family's supposed to know this stuff."

Buffy sighed. "Luz got the wrong end of the stick somehow." She plucked the cigarette from his hand, and took a drag herself. "But did you have to freak her out like that?"

"How else was she gonna believe it? She thought she was bein' pranked."

"God, maybe she's not too bright." Buffy took another puff and handed the cigarette back. "Or maybe she's just a regular person. I mean ... that's what a regular person would think, right? Someone sane?"

"Right."

"You're not 'the vampire I fuck.'"

"I am."

"You're my lover." She wondered, as she said it, if maybe he'd disagree. Because he didn't love her. God, maybe she really was just the vampire slayer he fucked.

"What d'you think, Buffy? Should we get out of here?"

"What's going on outside? Can you hear?"

"Yeah, he's explainin' it all to her. She's not sayin' much."

"Those poor babies. Done out of their nap."

"Lovely kiddies. Was quite enjoyin' 'em. S'been a long time since I got to hold a little one."

"Poor Spike." She threaded a hand through his arm, let her head drop against his shoulder. "I'm sorry this is weird."

"Not your bloody fault, is it?"

"Of course it's my fault. I went and had children with Angel."

"Was me sent you to him."

"That's right. Okay, it's your fault after all."

"Let's get out of here an' come back if that Luz calms down."


	10. Chapter 10

As they emerged into the kitchen from the basement, hoping to make a quiet get-away, Luz and Joe came back into the house.

The babies were still crying, but more quietly now; they were wrung out and exhausted. Luz and Joe looked pretty wrung out themselves, each with a baby on their shoulder, jogging and comforting them.

Buffy said, "We'll go. We're sorry for all the confusion."

Luz shook her head. "Please stay."

Spike was looking at his boot toes; she could feel how much he wanted to disappear. But Luz approached them then; blocking the way out of the kitchen. She looked Buffy in the eye.

"I feel stupid. All this time I thought you all were pulling my leg, and it bugged me. But I was wrong. You all were just being straight with me, and I didn't believe you. I believe you now. That you're Joe's grandma. That vampires ... vampires are real." She glanced at Spike. "If you say he's all right, I guess he's all right with me."

Before she could answer, Spike said, "S'your house, Missis. You don't want monsters in it, you needn't have 'em."

The look Luz gave him then was not at all what Buffy had expected, and it made her chest crack.

A piteous compassion, as if she'd been told some grave, irrevocable news.

And then she stepped up to Spike, and offered him the baby, who was blinking now, on the verge of sleep. "You like holding her, yes? I see how much you like it."

Spike almost didn't accept her, but Luz handed the child over and he had no choice but to catch her. Watching this, Buffy wondered how many infants Spike had snatched from their mother's arms, from cradles in invaded rooms, to drain and abandon. The images flooded her head, catching her off guard—it had been forever since she'd considered Spike's past, thought of him as a predator. That she would think of it now disgusted her, even as the sight of him, gathering Rose up high against his chest, where he could inhale her baby smell, filled her with a confused instinct to intervene.

But Luz was plucking at Spike's sleeve, leading him into the living room, encouraging him to sit down, to be at home. She almost wanted to follow and tell Luz that this was too much, that Spike wasn't actually a member of this family, that she needn't overdo her welcome.

"Want one of your own?"

Joe's voice in her ear startled her; she turned from the scene in the living room. "No more babies for Buffy."

"I just meant this one. Just for a lend. I need to get started on preparing lunch."

"Huh? Oh, sure." Taking Daisy with practiced nonchalance, she returned her attention to the scene in the next room, where Spike was now firmly seated at one end of the sofa with his armful of sleeping Rose, while Luz perched near him, one cushion-span away, leaning forward, her hands caught between her knees as if she had to restrain herself from undoing her generous impulse and snatching the child back. She was talking to Spike in a rasped whisper, like there was a great necessity for discretion about what he was.

Except, Buffy realized a moment later, that wasn't it. It was only that the baby was asleep; she didn't want to wake the baby. Spike replied in the same tones, they spoke back and forth awkwardly, not quite looking at each other, looking more at Rose's sleeping face, as though she was the subject of their consultation. Except Buffy knew it wasn't. She waited, as behind her Joe began rooting around in the refrigerator. Then it came, what she'd been expecting; the crunch. Spike lifted his game-face and pointed it at Luz, the gold eyes slowly opening and shutting, like a sated lion's. Luz gasped, but she didn't move, neither forward or back. Just looked at what she'd asked to see again, and then, after a long frozen moment, put a hand up in the air, arresting it half-way, until Spike's solemn nod freed it to reach across and touch.

The small brown fingers probed the sharp distended cheekbones, the ruffled nose, the harsh brows, pressing on the bones as if Spike were some inanimate object. Buffy couldn't see Luz's face, but she could imagine her expression.

Then she got up. "I gotta fix the lunch. You sit. You sit long as you like." She made a gesture with her hand, as if to ward him in place. Then she half turned back, another glance at her child in the vampire's arms. "I am sorry for you, Will. Okay? I am sorry."

Buffy wanted to slap her then, wanted to shout that Spike didn't need pity about being undead, respect, yes, but not pity. She wanted Spike to assert that, to turn aside her remark, but he only nodded, letting the game-face go, returning his attention to the sleeping infant he cradled. There was no time to say anything, because now Luz was right beside her, looking at her, her large eyes full of apology.

"I thought you all were disrepecting me, with those stories. I really didn't understand. I think I disrespected you."

"No, you didn't," Buffy said. "It's okay. Really, it's okay. Just a big misunderstanding, from now on we'll laugh about it, yes? And you'll have your story too, you can tell your story about today."

Luz smiled a little at that, rather bravely, which showed that she was still wondering if she'd fetched up among people who were too weird for her to cope with. But she nodded, and said thank you, and told Buffy to put the baby down whenever she got tired of her, and that the lunch would be ready as soon as she'd made the tortillas.

Buffy sat beside Spike. It felt odd, the two of them in a surburban living room, each with an infant in arms. Like another one of Willow's old spells, where she'd twitch her nostrils and make _them_ into the married couple with the sudden family they couldn't quite cope with.

Willow. God.

"You okay, Spike? You want to put her down?"

"No. Have to give her over soon enough."

"You wouldn't want to stuck with her for very long."

" _You_ wouldn't," he said.

Buffy stared, and sighed. Then she rose and went to put Daisy in her cradle. 


	11. Chapter 11

" _I'm the vampire you fuck_? Boy Spike, you get more and more sentimental with age."

"Wondered when you'd bring that up again."

It was night, their visit over for now, and they were driving, Spike at the wheel, going just a little too fast, in the direction of the Pacific.

"I don't want to fight about it. I just ... it makes me a little sad. I didn't want to let it go unremarked."

"Couldn't be _you_ gettin' sentimental, could it?"

 _What do you do with a depressed vampire?_ He hadn't seemed so low after Xander's funeral; partly she suspected it was because she'd been distracted herself to tune in to him, partly that the effect came on gradually. Which made sense; her own depressions tended to occur after the fact, sometimes long after. And Spike had a lot to mourn and miss—Xander's death broke up not just a relationship but a home, and Spike's whole settled existence. Caring for him in his long illness had been involving; Spike had turned out to be—not a surprise, really—a tender nurse.

Bereft of that, he'd given himself to what he called 'the watchering trade', and what turned out to be a succession of slayers, none of whom lasted very long. The horror of that frangibility occurred to Buffy now as something that would be particularly keen for Spike, who knew first hand about the vulnerability and demise of young girls, and of slayers. That his charges kept falling must be, she realized, something he felt as a personal fault, though no one on the Council spoke of him as anything less than a valuable asset, or asserted that anyone could've done better. She knew it herself: the slayer's job was to die. Even she, who was supposedly the best of the best, had died more than once.

"I have lots of sentiment." She turned to him. Spike always looked handsome and keen behind the wheel of a car, the way some other men might look on horseback, or when wielding a gun. "Is there something about what we do in bed that isn't working for you?"

He gave her a side-glance, half-leer, half-sneer.

"No, I'm serious. Back in London you were angry with me. I thought you were over it, but maybe you just sank it. I don't want anything from you that you're not giving freely."

He didn't answer.

"Spike, we can spend time together without sex. If you don't want to sleep with me at all—"

He shook his head. "That Joe doesn't know when he'd well off. He's got a good wife there, an' she's given him two lovely kiddies, an' he ought to be more ... more. She'll come round to openin' her legs faster, anyhow, if he was."

"How do you know about that?" She really hadn't thought Spike could overhear their conversation in the garden, not all the way inside the house.

But he tapped his nose. Oh, of course. That omniscient smeller of his.

_Way to change the subject._

Except, as she thought about it, Buffy started to suspect it wasn't a change of subject at all.

Spike held the silence for twenty miles.   


	12. Chapter 12

When he parked, in an empty lot on a cliff overlooking the ocean, the quiet seemed to crowd around them when the purr of the engine was cut. Far below, the sea roared.

"Have a swim?" Spike said.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm all right. Have a swim?"

"Okay. Only ... I want you to know. You're making my heart heavy. You started out trying to take care of me, and--"

"If I'm bringin' you down, Slayer, can go your own way."

"You're willfully misunderstanding me!"

Spike sighed. "Yeah, I am."

A sense of relief blew through her, but it was immediately dogged by a pang of misgiving. What did Spike really want? What was he pining for? It seemed to change every little while, but none of it seemed in her power or willingness to provide--his death. A child of his own flesh and blood. Or maybe just some kind of oblivion short of dust, but past the ability of liquor and sex and travel to provide.

"The ocean will be freezing."

"Needn't go in if you don't care to."

"I just don't want you to be cold."

She could tell that he heard the echo of what she'd said to him that first morning in his London flat, when she'd fretted over his loneliness and discomfort. He smiled. "It makes no difference."

"It should make a difference." An urge took her, to make him offers, promises--all the things he'd suggested to her in Iceland, that she'd turned aside with an offish laugh. Not realizing then that he was hinting at his own wishes--or at least, the things he'd have wished for if he thought there was any chance for them. He'd suggested a time out, a couple of decades to pretend to be regular people.

Maybe it wasn't such a crazy idea after all. Measuring life, for a change, in coffee spoons. It could be fine, couldn't it, if you knew how to make really good coffee? If you were drinking it with someone you really liked?

She wondered if this was the first time in his undead existence that he'd really wanted to be human again. It seemed so out of character for him. He'd always relished his strengths and appetites. Even after their Sunnydale debacle, even after he got his soul. She'd never have remotely believed that he wanted to go back to being just a man.

"Spike." She reached for him. He looked at her, not moving for a moment, then slid to meet her, letting her take him in her arms. She pressed a kiss to his brow. "You know it isn't always going to be like this. You've had bad times before."

He grunted a little, whether in protest at her characterization, or agreement, she wasn't sure.

She added, "I'm glad we're together."

He pulled back a little then, regarding her with some suspicion.

"I'm not coddling you," she said, smiling.

"Not much." He grumbled, but then he smiled too. Put the car in the gear, drove them back towards the hotel.

"After Xander died, when you sold up ... did you get rid of everything?"

"Kept some bits an' bobs, in storage. But nothin' big."

"I don't understand why you rushed to break up your home."

"Vampires don't amass real estate. What was I gonna do, squattin' on that house, when he was all gone?"

"Well, you could've mourned there. I think you forgot about that."

"I didn't forget, Slayer."

In bed, she wrapped herself around him. She sensed that Spike didn't want to fuck, and was proud of herself for realizing it. He snuggled back into her warmth, and she felt him fall asleep, his body going still and cool. She lay awake for a long time, thinking.  


	13. Chapter 13

She was in his arms, a lady with smooth fragrant skin, giving herself to him, warm body pressed in close, hair falling across his face as he took her throat with a deep and voluptuous bite, at the same time thrusting into her slick pussy.

Starting awake, he shuddered, pushing the sensations aside. It was a dream he'd had for decades, sometimes frequently, at other periods more rare. It always disquieted him, because it was bloodthirsty, and because it made him feel unfaithful to Xander, who he thoroughly loved when he was awake and yet somehow had the trick of excluding this way in sleep, when the source of satisfaction became female, and compliant in a way he'd never wanted from Xander. Spike reached for him now, certain of feeling him there, but the arm that his hand fell on was too narrow, and then the aroma that came on his indrawn breath wasn't Xander's at all.

Xander was dead. That reality crashed in on him, with the force of something heavy dropped on his head from a great height. It wasn't the first time he'd awakened into the illusion that their time together was still ongoing, that he was in their particular bed that was no more, in a particular room he'd sold away some years back now. Another trick of his mind he'd have liked to suppress. Buffy stirred when he touched her, and put a hand up to cup his jaw. "Hi," she whispered.

Spike pulled her in close. Like the lady in the dream—he'd never before considered that the lady was anyone real—her hair fell on his face, and she pressed herself against him, sliding a leg across to rub her wet cunt against his hip. Without a word, he shifted towards her, and she guided his erect cock inside. He let her set the pace; she moved with a languid rhythm, like a vocalist singing just behind the beat. He wondered if she'd been having some kind of dream as well, to be as ready as he was. Xander was still there, hovering in his mind, with the sense that he was playing him false.

But Buffy kissed him then, and whispered in his ear, "Sweet, sweet cock, sweet Spike," and the small weight of her bearing down on him, covering him, diffused the past and left him with the right now, the curtain of her hair falling around his face, and her heated breath on his mouth.

He returned her kisses, stirred up into her languorous downthrusts. A warm sensation, not romantic, but deeply friendly, came over him; she was a generous sweet woman, she was being good to him.

She whispered again. "What shall we do, Spike? Stay here and see the babies some more? Go to St Petersburg? Or—"

"Or?"

She slowed her movements further, down to a soft flexing of her inner muscles around his cock, as if she was breathing him. She didn't speak right away, but he felt her flush, the heat spreading down from her cheeks and neck, through her body clasped in his arms.

Her heartbeat picked up. He was curious now. "Or?"

She laughed a little. "This is good. I like this."

He knew it wasn't what she'd meant to say, but he agreed, and kissed her, caressing her with his hands, running the curve of her back into the swell of the buttocks. She flushed anew. He waited, and then she said, "I'd like to make you happy."

What was this? "Ah, would you?"

"Could I? How would I do that?"

"Dunno."

"Really?"

It was hard to think when he was getting laid. "What're you sayin', pet?"

"I want to give you what you want. Do you want a home again? Something settled and solid? Do you want ... do you want a child? I'll have a child for you, Spike."

"Don't talk nonsense."

"I'm not."

He rolled her beneath him, gave her kisses to stop her mouth as he fucked her. He thought she'd be angry, but she gave way willingly, holding him close, and he could tell by how she breathed and moved that she was excited, that he was pleasing her. Little by little she panted harder, and then began to cry out.

When they were finished, and she lay still and slick-skinned beneath him, she cleared her throat.

"I meant what I just said. Why is it nonsense?"

"Because it is."

"You had a life with Xander. You had ... before that you had one with Drusilla. Why can't you have another one with me?"

He made his voice as gentle as hers. "Because it's bollocks."

"We should still talk about it, Spike."

He sighed. "You're a good girl, slayer."

"You being all frustrated is what's bollocks."

"I'm not frustrated."

"You are. You're frustrated and sad, don't you think I know it when I see it? I'm an expert in frustrated and sad. I could write a dissertation on frustrated and sad."

"Well, an' if I am, it'll pass."

"It probably will. But I want to give you what you want. I know you're not in love with me like you once were, but we're good friends, aren't we? Spike, if you want a home I will make us a home. If you want a wife, I'll marry you. If you want a child—"

He cut her off. This was becoming excruciating. "I can't give you a bloody child."

"True. but I can give _you_ one."

"You're just talking a lot of bloody nonsense! You had an abortion a little while ago—you don't want any more truck with bringin' up brats."

"I would with you. I will for you."

"I don't want anything done _for_ me."

She stiffened, and started to pull away.

"Buffy. Know I'm makin' a hash of this. What you're offering—don't mean to discount it. Does you credit. But you know it's not on."

"I know nothing of the sort."

"No. You're bein' so kind to me. But I know where it's comin' from, yeah? You're just turnin' it around, what I offered you back in Iceland. You didn't want it then an' you don't want it now. Neither do I."

"I don't believe you."

He was amazed at her truculence. "You little pest—you have to believe me."

"I don't. You're trying to be heroic and self-effacing and I'm not buying it. There _are_ things you want, but you're not allowing yourself to want them. And as for me ... I haven't been very happy either. I could use a change."

"Playin' house with a vampire is not what you need."

"Was it _playing house_ when you lived with Xander for almost seventy years?" She sat up, and even as he reached for her, slipped out of bed. "Okay, okay. Don't get angry at me. We can drop it for now. But think about it."

 

_The end, for now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all there is of this story and this series, until further notice. Last update was May 2008.


End file.
